This book is about Eszter, the daughter of an aristocratic family fallen before the advent of communism, and her lifetime hatred for Angéla, who passes seamlessly from the old aristocracy to the new.
Angéla the convener of seminars, the constant presence at the orphanage, forever improving herself, her eyes glued to the copy of Karl Marx in German…and buying all the latest books on Party ideology. When people were turned away from the butcher’s because there was no meat to be had, she opened her eyes wide in astonishment and the tears flowed down her cheeks, and when she got home she took an economics book off the shelf to find out why there was nothing for sale….She had been just the same as a child, so self-sacrificing…she would always take on other people’s problems and shoulder all sorts of impossible burdens…because she always had the time and the means; she had no other business than to be the benefactor of mankind. (p. 185)
Yellow Crane in the Rain 